Life In 19x19

I read somewhere that Lee couldn't replay his own game when he was Cho HoonHyun's student.

hailthorn011 wrote:Magicwand that makes sense. I guess as you get stronger, you play less random moves and it makes it easier to remember.

I don't have the ability yet at all, really. -_- I think it's amazing people can do stuff like that.

I couldn't do it when I was 10k. But like you said, as you get stronger you understand your moves better and your assessments are less random, which is crucial to remembering any game you've played.

I wouldn't worry about not being able to remember your games right now. Just focus on topics that will make you stronger and you will likely acquire the skill naturally.

trout wrote:I read somewhere that Lee couldn't replay his own game when he was Cho HoonHyun's student.

The rumour has it that Cho was concerned that Yi could not replay the games (plural) he was playing in the insei study sessions. Cho had been taught the Japanese way and it was natural to him that a pro could remember his games. It may be that Yi was experimenting with the ideas that caused the "Korean spring".

On a side note, I remember going to a one-day tournament here in Britain and I had my computer with me but I had no time during the day to record my games. When I got on the train back to London, I recorded at least the first 150 moves of three games from memory. It helps if you have set opening patterns.

Best wishes.

Five years ago I played my first teaching game (3-stones) with Sakai Maki 8p at the Nihon Kiin. He treated me gently and only a last minute misjudgment in yose resulted in me losing by four points. One month later I met him again and he told me that he had been asked to write a magazine article on yose that week and had used the game we had played. I asked him if he had written down the game and he assured me that no, he had simply remembered it. He then proceeded to replay the game in front of me to show me what the article was about. It was just one of perhaps a dozen teaching games he had played on that Saturday a month earlier and of course he had all the normal activity of a professional in the succeeding month: professional games, professional study groups, other sessions of teaching games, etc. To this day I can not imagine how he does it

For myself, I used to be able to remember some games fairly well at least one day later and write them down. This facility disappeared when I started to play frequently on-line in the mid-nineties and the sgf's were automatically emailed to me (classic "use it or lose it"?). Even after stopping on-line play, I have never "recovered" - too old or too lazy I guess!

ez4u wrote:Five years ago I played my first teaching game (3-stones) with Sakai Maki 8p

Dave, what was Sakai Maki's age at that time, do you happen to know?

EdLee wrote:

ez4u wrote:Five years ago I played my first teaching game (3-stones) with Sakai Maki 8p

Dave, what was Sakai Maki's age at that time, do you happen to know?

He was born in '68 so 37 at the end of 2005 when we met.

I can begin to see glimmers of how you could remember your own moves in a game just by asking "OK, what's the best move here." But remembering what your opponent played seems much more tricky!

I think I can remember most of the Malkovich games I've played here from memory, but I have to first remember the first few moves.

Once I play the first few (maybe 10 or so) moves, I'm reminded of the game, and can replay most of it.

I think it's because you can remember the thought you had at that time, and play from there. But to get to that point, you need the first few moves to get into the groove.

jts wrote:I can begin to see glimmers of how you could remember your own moves in a game just by asking "OK, what's the best move here." But remembering what your opponent played seems much more tricky!

Yes, that's the hardest. Non-sequiters (probes) your opponent makes during battles are especially tough. But usually if you get stuck somewhere, thinking about shapes that arise later will jog your brain into saying "ah-ha! he made this exchange a dozen moves ago because it affects the ladder!"

jts wrote:I can begin to see glimmers of how you could remember your own moves in a game just by asking "OK, what's the best move here." But remembering what your opponent played seems much more tricky!

Remembering where your opponent played in a local sequence isn't as hard because you know the end position and the rest is usually forced. What's really bad is when your opponent tenukis. When you tenuki you often remember what you were thinking at that time and then manage to recall your move. When your opponent tenukis there usually several possibilities. Then you just have to guess and continue until you get to a point where the game doesn't add up anymore. For example white needs to play 2 times in a row to get to the game position or black would have never played this obvious aji-keshi move now. Then you have to backtrack and try another point where the sente/gote roles were switched and start anew. This can get tiresome

While I'm terrible at anything memory-related, I'm tempted to try to start practicing this. While it won't necessarily improve my go (unless I study a ton of pro games or something), it seems really useful to be able to review OTB games, or record a game after it's played. Basically, the cool kids can do it, so I want to. =D Not to mention, it may help joseki study and such, to be able to remember games where they were played.

jts wrote:I can begin to see glimmers of how you could remember your own moves in a game just by asking "OK, what's the best move here." But remembering what your opponent played seems much more tricky!

Yes.

Often when reviewing a FTF handicap game I reach a point where I say, "Where did you play next?" The reply is usually, "I don't know." And there we are.

The thing that helped me the most in training my ability to memorize my own games, was memorizing pro games.

Once a week I would memorize a new pro game -- from paper record, on a real board and stones (not computer)

I could usually replay the game for several days later, or until I memorized the next game, whichever came first. But soon after, I was able to remember most, if not all of my own games immediately after playing them.

I haven't been practicing lately, so my ability to remember my own games has waned a bit. But its really not as hard as it sounds.

And I started when I was around 12k

xed_over wrote:The thing that helped me the most in training my ability to memorize my own games, was memorizing pro games.

Once a week I would memorize a new pro game -- from paper record, on a real board and stones (not computer)

I could usually replay the game for several days later, or until I memorized the next game, whichever came first. But soon after, I was able to remember most, if not all of my own games immediately after playing them.

I haven't been practicing lately, so my ability to remember my own games has waned a bit. But its really not as hard as it sounds.

And I started when I was around 12k

Right. I started trying to memorize pro games myself. So far, I've memorized 23 moves of one game. I have the SGF but I play it out on an actual board from memory. I haven't been able to work on it very much because a lot has been happening lately. But hopefully I'll be able to continue working on it tomorrow.

That's not the approach I would take. I think playing it on a board is really good, but not playing the next move until you have memorized the last one seems like a bad approach. I would say play through the game normally, placing stones on the board as well, and then when you're done, see how far you can remember. It also helps a lot if you choose a game which has commentary available for it, as that helps a lot in understanding why each move was played, which is critical to remembering a game.